


Stories of the Second Self: Mother to Crows

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [130]
Category: The Howling (1981), Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:20:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22675507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: A federal investigator and military troops search a log cabin deep in the Montana wilderness. There, they find a journal seemingly addressed to them by a woman calling herself Mother to Crows.
Series: Alter Idem [130]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Mother to Crows

Somewhere in Montana

'No one seems to know it, but I might be the world's oldest spontaneously-turned werewolf. I was 87 when what I read in papers is called Alter Idem happened. I'd been living with what I call The Gift for the last four years. When my husband died over forty years ago I decided to live a simpler life. I'd inherited land out in Montana and previously didn't know what to do with it.

'Then they came to my door, those two gentlemen in uniform to tell me the news. Don't bother asking which war, because they're all the same. I've lived alone ever since, and too few of my family were still around to wonder why I dropped off the face of the Earth. Occasionally, I'd go to town for groceries, though that was with less regularity, as I learned to live off the land.

'My garden provides some of my food, trapping and hunting provides much of the rest. Crows and ravens have come to know and follow me, because I leave scraps out for them. In the early years, when I needed books from a library in town on camping and wilderness survival, I learned that ravens and crows seemed to also get along with real wolves, so I guess it's fitting.

'Some twenty years ago I started needing a walking stick, so that I still use it is just out of habit. I also stopped wearing shoes, unless I was going into town. Most of my hair is still gray, but that's what grew out before I turned. My roots are sandy blond now, and my wrinkles faded considerably since the lycanthropy. However, many young ladies are dying their hair gray, so I think that makes me part of the hip crowd, I think.

'There was a time I'd go hunting with the rifle my husband owned, however The Gift makes that unnecessary. With all the oddities this new age brought, I still have yet to see Bigfoot, and if anyone should've run into it it's me. Though, the first couple years of The Gift, I was surprised that I hadn't become the source of sightings.

'Instead, an increasing number of folk tales call me the Crow Witch, as if I'm out here casting spells. Since magic is real now, maybe I should learn some. Not that it would've made a difference the last time youngsters came out to my cabin on a dare.

'I was out when they broke into my home, not that the door or windows were locked. It was after dusk when I returned. I didn't even reach the front door to open it, when they bolted out like the devil himself were after them. No, the sight of all the crows and ravens heralded my return. I saw a face pop up in my window, and then turned to look to whoever else was in there. Just a breath later my front door flung open and seven kids, who I guess were high school aged, ran for their lives.

'Chuckling... or maybe cackling, as I did, probably didn't help my image, but it was a break of levity in my otherwise quiet life. Some might call it monotonous, but those are people who don't relish hearing the wind and the chorus of the wild. They'll never understand, and those who understand don't need to hear me say it.

'The last time I went into town I saw headlines on the paper about social order collapsing and martial law being declared across the country. Not long after that, the helicopters flew overhead with more regularity. It's only a matter of time before people like you would come to my cabin to figure out what I'm all about. So, I left this journal for you.'

-Clara, Mother to Crows

The federal officer dressed in camouflage fatigues closed the journal and laid it carefully onto the handmade scrap wood table by the front door. He exchanged looks with the Montana National Guard Captain whose platoon escorted him and his bureau partner to the cabin.

"It's note dated," the FBI officer said to the Guard captain.

"Do you think she turned before that Mark Lowell kid?" she replied.

"Could be," he shrugged, "Don't know."

"Cap," one of the guardsmen called out, "Got a shitload of birds comin' down the valley."

Both the captain and federal agent went to the window to look. Sure enough, they caught the massing of corvids and what held the center of their attention. A woman in a tattered brown dress strode downhill toward the cabin. The federal agent gasped at realizing that, while she used a walking stick in one hand, she dragged a mule deer by its ankles in her other.

As she drew nearer, the agent noticed how she didn't appear to struggle with the load. The woman, who must've been Clara looked more in her forties, and unconsciously ran his hand over the side of his thinning speckle-gray hair in envy.

"Cap, what do you wanna do?" sounded the same guardsman with building urgency.

"She's harmless," the Guard captain remarked without tearing her eyes off the elder woman, not so elderly looking anymore.

"I'll go with that," the federal agent agreed, "I'm ready to go when you are."

The Guard captain called out to her troops, "Alright people, nothin' goin' on here. Get 'chr shit and get back in the helos."

Single file, the platoon and two agents streamed out of the cabin and back into the Black Hawks that were settled down around the cabin. As they lifted off and circled the site, the federal agent stared down at Clara, who had stopped to stare back at the helicopters.

Clara was right, the agent thought, she needn't say a word for him to understand why she lived out here.


End file.
